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had a great time yesterday. we drove over 250 miles in the stang. with no problems. lots of thumbs up and a few burnouts. the wife and I bailed a bit early because the place that we were all supposed to eat at had a snafu in scheduling so we went to granite city for supper. it was a really nice day all around.







the cruise was a joint affair between the modern mopar club and the mustang car club of omaha. the mustangs were a bit underrepresented but we had fun. there were some nice mopars there too, and even though I am a ford guy I can appreciate a nice car of any brand.
 
Well much as I love my little YJ I have been jones'ing over a tj for a while. I saw this one over at the local used car lot, and I thought I would trade my yj in.


it is a 2001 with the 4.0 auto trans, ac cruise control and all the good stuff. it has brand new 265 75 16 wheels and tires on it not in perfect condition but pretty good. they are asking 9800.00

well after discussing it with the guy and seeing what he would give me for my jeep I decided it wasn't worth trading in my yj so I decided to keep it but give it to my son to play with. he has a 2004 liberty that is his daily driver, but while it is a good vehicle for daily driving it is not really an offroad vehicle so I thought he would like the yj and give me a chance to work on it some with him. He was pumped when I told him about it. so I went ahead and bought the tj outright for 8800. So now I am going to start playing with it for a while.
 
How many miles are on the TJ? Nice rig!
 
129000 I will post up some more pictures pretty soon. it is not perfect, but I have been looking for a while and this is the nicest I have seen with the options I want.

things I know need fixed.

1. the tailgate hinge is broken. new ones ordered.

2. cruise control doesn't work. I will sort that out when I have time.

3. the tires are actually too tall for the stock suspension. I am in the same situation on this jeep I really don't want to lift it because with the high winds etc. here I prefer to keep it as low as possible. the biggest problem with the tires is they hit the lower control arm on tight turns. I considered just adjusting the stops but I really want to keep the turning radius as good as possible so I am going to add some wheel spacers and bushwacker pocket flares to move the tires out a bit. then I may add some tubular lower control arms if that isn't enough. and of course the speedometer gear is off. I will probably just get a new speedo gear for now but I would like to gear it properly for the tires at a later time.

4. the center console lid is broken, and the plastic surrounding the radio does not stay in place so I suspect some broken mounting tabs.

5. My daughter says she wants "her stereo" in the new jeep lol.

6. the ashtray is missing.

7. a couple little rock pits in the windshield.

I just got it last night so that is all I know of so far. I have already ordered a bunch of stuff to start fixing these little annoyances. so far I am very pleased with it.
 
Too bad you weren't closer to me. I just gave my '04 TJ with 99k miles away to Car Max, and everything broken had been replaced, including the windshield chips.

View attachment jeep 2.jpg
 
Took a bath on it. They gave me $7500. I know they were going to rip me off, but with the divorce, I needed to get rid of it quick. Oh well, why cry over spilled milk.
 
havasu said:
Took a bath on it. They gave me $7500. I know they were going to rip me off, but with the divorce, I needed to get rid of it quick. Oh well, why cry over spilled milk.
Click to expand...

Why...cause we can. ;)
 
yeah that is why I decided not to trade the yj after all I put into it I might as well just give it away rather than trade it. I was not sure my son would want it. he is kind of different. he is very independent when he needed a new vehicle when the cherokee died he did not want me to help with it at all. he wanted to buy it himself and not have me involved except to cosign the note. he did not even want that but the bank would not loan him the money without it. anyway I was glad he wanted it. it should be fun to work on it with him. and my daughter is loving the new jeep.
 
Nice score on the TJ, MG and I'm glad you kept the YJ in the family...
 
I had another thought today. I have read that putting tj flares on a yj is a good way to get a bit more clearance for bigger tires. I also like the way they look and since I am going to be putting the bushwackers on the tj I think I will put the tj flares on the yj. and trim the sheetmetal a bit. then since my son is not going to be using this as a daily driver I can add a small lift like 2 inch ome and that would allow a 32-33 inch tire. that will make the little yj look a lot meaner.
 
well not so happy tonight. driving the thing it sounds great but I had it started out in the garage with the hood up tonight and there is a knock somewhere I don't like. it is loudest with my stethoscope on the transmission bell housing but when I checked the torque convertor bolts they seem pretty tight. I am going to have to see if I can get dad over here to listen to it and see what he thinks. hopefully it isn't a big problem. I still have the short block I rebuilt for the yj so I suppose I can always swap that in if I have to but I will not be happy if this thing turns out to need some major work right away.
 
ok. good news and bad news. the knock in the engine dad says sounds like just a little lifter noise and it went away after it warmed up so he says not to worry about it for now. I will probably have to rebuild it some point but it does not sound like a rod or piston slap to him. that is what I was most worried about. ok bad news apparently the 93 xj block is not compatible with a 2000 and up tj. they changed the motor mount holes and the accessory drive mounting holes so the other block won't work for me. more bad news, kind of. I pulled the wheels off to check the brakes and the front pads are shot. the rotors aren't too bad but I think I will replace them anyway. the rear shoes are not too bad however so I may just leave them for a while.

I ran the car fax on this jeep and it turns out that the tailgate hinge was broken in a "impact with a ditch" accident in 2011. anyway it was not from rust which I was worried about. the undercarriage looks pretty good. no big grease covered areas. no visible rust. the frame seems solid. It looks as though it was recently painted but I can see no areas where there appears to be any rough or bubbled areas to suggest underlying rust.

so back to happy today lol.
 
mustanggarage said:
I had another thought today. I have read that putting tj flares on a yj is a good way to get a bit more clearance for bigger tires. I also like the way they look and since I am going to be putting the bushwackers on the tj I think I will put the tj flares on the yj. and trim the sheetmetal a bit. then since my son is not going to be using this as a daily driver I can add a small lift like 2 inch ome and that would allow a 32-33 inch tire. that will make the little yj look a lot meaner.
Click to expand...

You will have to trim the sheet metal a bit but it is a nice upgrade, I did it to my last two jeeps. Here is a pic of the rears done on my current jeep before I tore it apart.

View attachment Old pics 087.jpg

View attachment Old pics 162.jpg

View attachment Jeep Jan 2012 2.jpg

View attachment 1990 Jeep 011.jpg

View attachment BB1.jpg
 
yeah I have researched it on jeep forum quite a bit. there are a couple nice write ups. I will probably take some pictures while I am at it and post them here for posterity lol. anyway I think that is something my son and I can do this summer for little cost and even before we lift it I know that 31 10.50 tires will fit. I had those on my jeep in utah I put a set of bushwacker flares on it and did not trim any metal so I know with a little judicious use of the cut off wheel I can get it done. or actually I have been wanting to buy an air powered hack saw for a while. http://www.eastwood.com/air-body-saw.html they are only 40 bucks or so. that would be a good excuse. I already have an air nibbler but that would not work so well around the fender area. gotta love any excuse to buy new tools lol
 
btw I also sold the shell of the cherokee. I basically just wanted to get rid of it but I got 500.00 for jeep parts for the tj. the tj is going to be pretty much a girls jeep I figure. it already has pretty agressive tires and that is about all I intend to do to it performance wise. I am just going to fix it up a bit and drive it. if I can keep my daughter out of it that is. My intention is to give it to her for her graduation in a couple years so I want to keep it pretty stock.

things I have for it so far.

1. the spidertrax 1.25 spacers.
2. quadratec I vault stereo enclosure
3. new rotors and pads. the drums and shoes are still ok.


things still on order.

1. fender flares.
2. speedometer gear.
3. tailgate hinges.
4. digital media stereo
5. replacement center dash vent.
6. replacement taillight lenses.
7. replacement license plate bracket.
8. speed control module.
9. ash tray.
10 rear windshield wiper arm.
11 owners manual
12 heated seat elements
13 viper smart start remote starter

so I have lots of stuff to do but as I am fond of saying patience is not one of my virtues lol so I wish stuff would hurry up and get here already.
 
MG, which of the Bushwackers Flares did you run on your other Jeep? I've been thinking of putting the flat ones on mine with 31's and a 2" lift.
 
I ran the pocket flares. this is an old picture so the resolution is not great. it was a 4 cylinder I converted to 4.0 this was with 31 10.50 15 and no lift.

I later added a 2 inch rubicon express lift, although I never had any issues with running it like it was here. I was living in utah and took it on several pretty interesting trails and never thought I needed the lift. I finally put it on because the front springs were starting to sag and I did not want to just put stock replacement springs back on. it looked a bit better lifted, but honestly that was the main difference I noticed.

View attachment old jeep.jpg
 
Have you seen Chris's metal fenders? One of these days I'm going to do that.
 
Did the RE springs make it ride any better? I've been looking at OME or BDS.
 
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